So why do progressives prefer to face Kelly? A few reasons. For one, he already lost a race for Supreme Court, quite badly: In 2020, when he was seeking a full term after being appointed to fill a vacancy by then-Gov. Scott Walker, he got crushed by progressive Judge Jill Karofsky by a 55-45 margin—a huge spread in a state where elections are often decided by a single point.
He’s also much more extreme and has zero interest in presenting himself as even remotely moderate. And he lacks Dorow’s profile. Dorow presided over a high-profile trial last year of the man convicted of killing six people at the Waukesha Christmas parade in 2021. That gave her the kind of positive name recognition few trial judges ever achieve. Kelly’s got none of that.